translating one query in Active record CI to ordinary sql

[eluser]pickupman[/eluser]
You can pass a WHERE statement as a string. Using implode to combine your cities into a string.

Code:

$city_where = implode("' OR x.id = '", $citites); // create string from array
$city_where = ltrim($city_where, "' OR"); // trim first OR from the implode
$this->db->where('(' . $city_where .')');

Probably need to tweak a bit, but this should get you close.